BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhua) -- China's manufacturing sector continued to expand in April as the resumption of work and production accelerated, official data showed Thursday.

The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector stood at 50.8 in April, slightly easing from 52 in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.

Business activities in the manufacturing sector continued to pick up in April, although by a smaller margin than last month, NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said.

As the COVID-19 epidemic continued to recede, 98.5 percent of China's large and medium-sized enterprises had resumed production as of April 25, up 1.9 percentage points from one month ago, NBS data showed.

The sub-index for production edged down 0.4 percentage points to 53.7 in April, and that measuring the sector's demand for employees was down by 0.7 percentage points to 50.2, both indicating continued expansion.

The PMI for large- and medium-sized enterprises stood at 51.1 and 50.2, respectively, while that for small firms was 51, 0.1 points higher than a month ago.

Production activities of large-, medium- and small-sized enterprises all continued to rebound, showed the data.

The sub-index gauging the speed of raw materials delivery by suppliers rebounded by 1.9 percentage points to 50.1, while that of raw material inventory slid to 48.2.

The reading showed that demand is recovering slower than production, citing the sub-reading of 50.2 for new orders compared with 53.7 for production, Zhao said.

China's composite PMI rose 0.4 percentage points to 53.4, signalling that overall operations by manufacturing and non-manufacturing enterprises kept expanding.

Thursday's data also showed that the PMI for the non-manufacturing sector came in at 53.2 in April, up from 52.3 in March.

In breakdown, the sub-index for business activities in the construction sector went up 4.6 points from the previous month to 59.7, while that for the service sector stood at 52.1, up 0.3 points from March.

Driven by policies in advancing work and business restoration as well as expanding consumption, most service activities steadily resumed, Zhao said.

Expansion was also seen in business activities in the information transmission software and technical services fields, showing that new growth drivers have further propped up China's economic recovery and consumption growth, according to Zhao.